The woman fisted her hips. “If I am dead, then how is it that you both see me?” Her eyes narrowed. “And why do you both glow?”
“You are seeing our spirits,” Mary said. “Just as we see yours.” Around them the breeze began to stir, and with it the soft moans of other spirits. They hovered still in the shadows, but soon they would come out for a look. Ghosts were always attracted to a new one. Mary sighed. Although sorrow weighed down her breast, she’d been around death for so long that she was all but numb to the plight of the newly dead. “There is still a chance to move on. You must feel it. I suggest you take it, lest you be stuck here just as they are.” She didn’t need to explain who “they” were. The woman surely felt them creeping in, just as Mary and Daisy did.
Indeed, she looked over her shoulder before rubbing her arms in an agitated fashion. “I feel it. Like someone is plucking on my sleeve.” She shuddered. “I… I can’t! I don’t want to die.”
“Well, who does?” Daisy mused. However, her head tilted as she eyed the spirit thoughtfully. “Would you really rather stay? Even if it meant you never died?”
“Is this a true question?” Her accent, now that Mary turned her attention to it, was flat and hard. An American. Likely fresh off the boat.
“She has spirit,” Daisy said to Mary.
“She’s a strange one.” Most newly dead sobbed or went into hysterics over their destroyed bodies. Mary had. Best not to think about those memories.
The woman quirked a brow at Mary. “Says the woman who rushed in like a crazed banshee and beat down three full-grown men.”
“She’s in shock,” Daisy said to Mary with a smile.
Mary could not help but smile too. “Likely you’re right.”
The strange woman nodded. “I agree. Likely I’ll soon…” She wavered, and her throat bobbed on a swallow. “Can we move on, please?”
Mary could not fault her. The mere fact that she knelt next to a dead body threatened to make her sight go black. She kept her eyes firmly upon Daisy. “We could…”
Daisy’s eyes widened. “We could,” she agreed.
Mary’s gaze snapped to the hovering spirit, who seemed about to attempt jumping back into her old body. “You’d be a slave. For however long he deems.”
The woman blinked. “Who is ‘he’?”
“The man who can give you back your life,” Daisy said simply.
“Will it involve…” The spirit’s nose scrunched up. Being women, none of them had to say more.
“No,” said Mary emphatically. “You will have to find other willing spirits for him.”
“For what reason?”
“Well, there is the rub,” said Daisy a bit sadly. “Only he knows. Some he allows to return to their bodies and live life out as we are now. Others he takes with him. Though he promises no harm will come to them, no one here knows what happens to those souls.” Her blue eyes grew solemn. “You will not know until it is your turn.”
It was a devil’s bargain to be sure. Yet Mary had never regretted her decision. She supposed that was the unifying factor for all GIM: they simply loved life too much to lose theirs, even if their circumstances were less than pleasant. Did it make them selfish? Wrong somehow? She wondered every time another was offered the choice, every time she speculated on where the others went.
“Fine.” The spirit drew herself up and set her hands upon her hips once more. “I accept.”
No hesitation. Mary had to admit, the woman had more will to live than most. Adam would love that about her. Which would also put the woman in a dubious position.
“Well, then,” said Daisy. Yet her hand fluttered in the vicinity of her heart, not quite able to press it there.
Mary understood and rested a hand on Daisy’s limp one. “You know how?”
“Of course.” Daisy grimaced. “You sure?” she asked the spirit.
The woman’s form gained strength, glowing bright in the darkened alley. She wouldn’t look at her body, but only at Daisy and Mary. “Ought we not hurry?”
“Your body is safe for now,” Daisy murmured, but her gaze stayed resolutely away from it.
Mary knew why Daisy hesitated. The process of becoming a GIM was not pretty, or clean. And meeting their maker was always disconcerting. On a variety of levels.
With a sigh, Daisy pressed her hand against her clockwork heart and murmured the words that would call Adam forth. Instantly the air about them grew hot and florid with the smoky scent of myrrh and something darkly cloying. The effect of that fragrance upon Mary was instantaneous. Heat washed over her, tightening her nipples and making her sex throb. It was most unfortunate, and not a sensation she enjoyed, given what caused it. By the look of Daisy’s pinched lips, she too was affected and not happy either. Then again, their creator’s scent had that effect on men as well as women, so they could hardly be shamed.